Many articles, such as newspapers, magazines, etc., are dispensed from vending machines. Such vending machines customarily include a display cabinet having a lockable door which may be opened by inserting a suitable combination of coins into a coin mechanism associated with the display cabinet. When the door to the display cabinet is opened, a magazine or newspaper may be withdrawn from the display cabinet with the door then being returned to its locked position.
Present vending machines do offer some protection against theft through the use of the protective display cabinet which surrounds the articles that are being vended. However, present vending machines are ineffective in preventing the withdrawal of more than one article from the display cabinet after the door to the cabinet has been unlocked. Thus, a user may insert the correct change to purchase a single article from the machine which permits opening of the door to the cabinet. However, after opening the door, the user may then remove all of the articles from the vending machine. Thus, such present vending machines offer no protection, whatsoever, against the removal of more than one article by the user.
The profit margin to an owner of vending machines, for articles such as newspapers, may be relatively small. Thus, to earn a living, the vending machine owner may have to place a relatively large number of vending machines in areas frequented by the public. Then, even with a small profit margin, the vending machine owner may be able to make a reasonable living through increasing his sales volume.
In servicing a relatively large number of vending machines to increase sales volume, the vending machine owner may not be able to keep any one machine under surveillance to guard against the removal of more than ore article from a vending machine by the purchasers. This being the case, it is surprising that the owners of newspaper and magazine vending machines are able to survive since the business of the vending machine owner depends completely on the general honesty of the public in removing only one article from the vending machine during its operation.
Even though the general public may be reasonably honest in the use of newspaper and magazine vending machines, a relatively small percentage of thievery can wreak havoc with the profit margin of the vending machine owner. For example, if the owner of the vending machine has a profit margin of 2 cents on the sale of a 15 cent newspaper, the owner must invest 13 cents for each newspaper that is vended. For each newspaper that is stolen, the vending machine owner must, then, sell seven newspapers to recoup the loss on the stolen newspaper.
A newspaper vending machine may contain a relatively large number of newspapers, such as 50 or 100 newspapers, depending upon the size of the newspaper and the size of the vending machine. If a vending machine which contains, for example, 100 newspapers, is rifled by a thief who only pays for one newspaper, the vending machine owner may then have to sell approximately 700 newspapers to make up for the loss incurred by the theft. This could impose a very heavy burden on the newspaper vendor's business. Further, if such losses were of a recurring nature, they could, in time, force the newspaper vendor out of business.
In view of the above considerations, there is presently a need for a vending machine which would function to vend only a single article such as a newspaper or magazine. Such a machine would eliminate the present problems which plague newspaper and magazine vendors in which the opening of a vending machine can result in the theft of all of the articles in the machine.
Further, there is a need for a single article vending machine in which the opening through which the article is withdrawn can be varied in dimension to accommodate articles of varying thickness. For example, in the vending of newspapers, the thickness of the newspaper may vary from day-do-day depending upon the volume of classified advertising. Also, there will generally be a radical difference between the thickness of a Sunday newspaper and the thickness of a daily newspaper. By varying the dimension of the opening through which a single article is withdrawn, the opening can be adjusted to precisely fit the thickness of the single article which is being dispensed. Thus, the opening may be enlarged to fit the thickness of a Sunday newspaper or may be varied from one day to the next to accommodate daily newspapers of varying thickness. This would then provide the necessary flexibility for a single article vending machine in which the thickness of the article being dispensed may vary from one day to the next.